


Some Things Stay Sweet Forever

by eurudike



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 17:07:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4444697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eurudike/pseuds/eurudike
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As the end of his senior year approaches, Jack redoes a failed photography project, reminisces about his time at Samwell, and ponders how to say what he means - that is, if he can figure out what it is he means to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Things Stay Sweet Forever

**Author's Note:**

> i accidentally forgot the frogs existed for most of this.....i'm sorry sweet bb chowder  
> r&h also hardly show up, oops  
> shitty is genderfluid in this (and in my headcanon~) and uses they/them pronouns!
> 
> title from Animal Mask by The Mountain Goats:  
> "Some things you will remember,  
> some things stay sweet forever."

_Work shows technical proficiency, but conceptually unclear. Subject matter requires more thought. Composition adequate, could be improved._

The paper feels flimsy in Jack's hands, inconsequential in comparison to the sturdier photo paper that was stacked on top of it. He stares at his professor's barely legible handwriting, the kitchen chair hard against his back. The Haus is quiet, most of the team either in class or out enjoying the first hints of warm weather, but even so Jack doesn't notice that he has company until he feels his seat creak forward; none of the Haus furniture is particularly sturdy.

"Sup," comes Shitty's voice from behind him as they lean forward to peer over Jack's shoulder. Jack angles the paper toward them.

"Brah," Shitty says sympathetically, either deciphering the scribbled comments much more quickly than Jack had or reacting to just the large red D on the top of the page. "Tough break."

Jack drops his head onto the table. Up until last year, that would have resulted in something suspicious and likely sticky ending up in his hair, but he can count on the kitchen being impeccably clean since Bitty arrived.

"Well, shit, look," Shitty continues, sliding into the seat next to him, "she says you're technically proficient!"

"Shits," Jack says into the table, "This is thirty percent of my grade."

Shitty clucks and reaches over to ruffle his hair. With anyone else, Jack would bite their hand off before they got close enough to touch him, but this is Shitty; Jack would let them get away with most everything, and besides, they mess with everyone's hair. "Listen, this is Lopez, right? Lardo's taken like fifty classes with her, she fuckin' raves about her, and Lardo's tough to please. Go talk to her, try your luck, maybe she'll let you make it up somehow."

Jack lifts his head, considering. "Yeah, alright," he says. "Thanks, Shitty."

"Course, anything to pull your head out of your ass," Shitty claps him on the back as they stand and make their way over to the fridge. "And hey, maybe take Lardo with you, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt your chances." They wink at Jack under their outstretched arm, face mostly upside down.

Jack chuckles. "Thanks," he repeats, and he hopes Shitty knows he doesn't mean for the suggestion. From the look Shitty gives him as he straightens, Jack thinks they get it.

"Check this out, man—" Shitty holds up the beer in their hand, "I figured out how to hide some drinks in here where Bitty won't notice and move them down to that fucking cooler." They grin, looking absurdly proud of themself, and Jack feels the weight on his chest ease off a little.

***

It isn't as if Jack hasn't gotten bad grades before. He works hard at school, and never procrastinates, but aside from history, none of it comes easily to him. His second semester at Samwell, before he really got the hang of studying (or balancing hockey with anything else in his life), he bombed his English midterm and hardly got out of bed for most of spring break. It took Shitty banging on his door and threatening to bust in ("Jack Laurent Zimmermann if you don't cut the bullshit and let me the fuck in I'll break down this goddamn door and come get you, don't you doubt me!") before he allowed himself to be dragged to the library to get back on track. He wouldn't have passed that class if not for Shitty, who spent the rest of break sitting in the library with him while he did extra credit work, taking occasional trips to the closet in the back of the stacks to smoke up, and laying a surprisingly gentle hand on Jack's arm whenever they noticed him starting to tremble with the pressure of impending failure.

Jack's gotten a lot better at keeping up with school in the three years since then and he doesn't take the occasional bad grade as hard as he used to. He's serious about his schoolwork, but doing well still requires a lot of effort, and it's not the most important thing—he's here to play hockey, first and foremost, and everything else comes second.

This photography class is a different story, though. He wouldn't have expected stress to come from the one class he's taking for himself, and photography has been a personal hobby for a long time. He’s never had much time for it, but when he was a kid and his dad used to bring him along to team practices, he gave Jack a tiny point-and-shoot camera to keep him occupied. There's still a box, somewhere in their house in Montreal, stuffed with blurry shots of professional hockey players that could probably sell for a lot of money, despite being very apparently taken by a six year old. When he got a little older, he would take his digital camera on their fishing trips; his dad always caught more fish than he did, but they would settle in by the campfire at night and look through the pictures he'd taken of the lake they fished on. Even if it was only because he didn't know much about photography, when Bad Bob pointed to a picture and said "I like the light in this one" or "steady shot there," Jack liked to think his dad was proud of him.

***

Jack wakes with a start early the next morning, the sky outside his window showing just a hint of light and no sign of the rising sun. He grumbles and tries to get back to sleep, but it isn't long before his racing mind propels him up and out of bed. By the time he's gotten dressed, finished his report for tomorrow's class, and made himself a light breakfast, it's light out, though still the kind of pale morning light that Holster tells him "doesn't really count." He's itching to get out of the Haus, and to him, the chill spring air that the morning suggests is the best kind of inviting, but something tells him a morning run won't quiet his mind the way he usually counts on.

He doesn't really think about what he's doing as he walks back up the stairs, and he instantly regrets his not-quite-conscious decision to knock on Bitty's door when he hears the discontented mumblings that come as a response, followed by some rustling and what sounds like a stubbed toe. He considers ducking back into his own room and letting Bittle go back to bed, but then he pictures a blond head poking through the door and looking around in confusion, and he's still standing there, frozen with indecision, when the door opens and Bitty looks blearily up at him.

"Jack?" he says, voice still heavy with sleep. "What time is it?"

Well, he thinks, may as well commit. "Morning, Bittle," he forces brightness into his voice. "Time for an AM run!"

"Jaaaaaack," Bitty groans, even as he reaches over to his closet and pulls out workout clothes. "The season's over, why are you doing this to me…."

Jack can't help but smile at the whine in his voice. Bitty's rarely one for complaining, but Bitty at six in the morning is something of a different species from the Bittle who dances around the kitchen singing along with Beyoncé.

"It's nice out. Come on, Bittle, you're young and spry, I'm sure you can keep up," Jack says. "Even with your short legs," he adds after a pause.

Bitty casts him a glare; with his eyes still half closed, it isn't so much heated as slightly pathetic. Jack feels another pang of regret for waking him, but it's layered on top of a selfish gratitude for the comfort he already feels at having company after the quiet of a morning on his own.

"Give me ten minutes," Bitty sighs, shutting the door in his face.

After their run Bitty insists that they get coffee, so Jack retrieves his camera from the Haus; he's not really sure what to take pictures of, since apparently he needs to give more consideration to that than he has been, but he thinks maybe something will catch his eye on the walk to Annie's. It's still early, and Bitty has his winter jacket wrapped tight around him in spite of the sun.

"Cold, eh?" Jack chirps him as they cut through River Quad, and Bitty casts a slightly incredulous look at the t-shirt he's wearing.

"There's still snow on the ground, Jack," Bitty responds.

Jack chuckles. "You ought to come visit Montreal sometime," he says. "See how you handle a real winter."

Bitty shakes his head, flushing a little, and Jack stops in his tracks. It's a moment before Bitty notices, and turns back with his eyebrows raised.

"Hold still," Jack says as he raises his camera to his eye. He hadn't meant to include Bitty in the picture. His attention was caught by the trees bracketing the river ahead with Founder's rising up on the other shore, but the pink in Bitty's cheeks provides a nice contrast to the pale blue and orange behind him and he fits perfectly into the corner of the shot, at the center of an angle of two paths behind him, so Jack doesn't really think about it.

"Goodness," Bitty mutters when Jack puts his camera down and catches up to him, "we'll never make it to Annie's at this rate." It's only the second time Jack's stopped to take pictures, but he smiles and puts the cover back on the lens of his camera. He's taken plenty of pictures of Lake Quad, anyway.

"Oh, I meant to ask you," Bitty says abruptly when they're sitting down with their drinks, and he might be trying to distract Jack as he adds more sugar to the syrupy beverage he's trying to pass off as coffee, "how did your photography midterm go?"

Jack ducks his head. “Not so well,” he replies with a grimace.

“Really?” Bitty exclaims, looking genuinely shocked. “But they were so nice! You included the goose picture, right? And that lovely shot from the top of North Quad? Oh, you didn’t use the one of me and Shitty, did you? I swear that boy makes the most ridiculous faces -”

Jack stifles a laugh. “No, that one was for the portrait assignment at the start of the semester. But the other two, yeah.”

“Oh, they were so charming though!” Bitty frets. “I suppose I don’t know much about photography, but they were all such sweet pictures, and you captured the light so well…” Jack’s a bit touched at how worked up Bitty is getting. He’s not the kind of authority on art that Lardo is, but pies take a certain amount of artistry as well; Jack’s shown him most of his pictures because he really does value Bitty’s opinion. And he doesn’t think Bitty is just being gracious; he didn’t have a positive response to everything Jack showed him, and he gave solid reasoning when he was helping Jack decide which photos to print. He may not have the technical knowledge, but he seems to look at the pictures with a careful eye, and he's honest.

Jack shrugs. “That’s about what my classmates said during critique, too. I thought I was doing well. That was just looking at pictures on their own, though; I guess as a whole project it’s different.” He shrugs again. “My professor said I need to put more thought into what I take pictures of. She’s been talking in class about photographic narratives a lot, I guess that’s what I’m missing. I’m going to try to redo it, I just need to figure out what I want to say.”

Bitty looks at him for a long moment, eyes narrowing. “Well,” he says, an uncertain twist to his mouth, “what is it you like about photography?”

The question catches Jack off guard, and his first response is, “It’s fun.” He looks down, considering. He isn’t sure how to phrase what he wants to say. “It makes everything still, just for a moment,” he finally says, but that isn’t quite right.

Jack doesn’t have a large variety of interests. A lot of his hobbies are things that make his mind quieter, calm and simple activities that he can focus all his attention on, like fishing and golfing. He likes history, where all the little pieces come together to make a cohesive whole, something complete. Even if there’s something he can’t make sense of, he knows it’s only because he doesn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle—it has to all fit together, because it really happened. It’s like hockey plays in reverse: all the strategy, none of the uncertainty. But photography doesn’t have any of the same precision, and it certainly isn’t simple. When he takes pictures, he has to put thought into every aspect of the shot, balancing contrast and light and color and where to stand so that the shapes and lines fall into place just right. It’s all about how he sees things, and allowing others to see them in the same way. No matter what, he’s never just capturing something exactly how it is; there’s freedom in how he frames the world and what he pulls out of it, like constructing his own reality.

So maybe it is a bit like history. He says as much, and Bitty shoots him a confused look. He gives another shrug. “I like taking a moment and freezing it, so I can really take it apart and take it all in.”

Bitty continues looking at him; Jack shifts under his thoughtful gaze. “Sorry,” Bitty says eventually, “I thought maybe you’d say something we could draw a concept out of.”

Jack smiles at him. He doesn’t say so, but he thinks maybe that did help.

***

When he gets back from his morning class, Lardo is perched on the windowsill in the den, one foot propped on the back of the beat up armchair that Shitty's sitting in and one against the back of their head. Ransom and Holster are sitting on the couch, playing a racing game and jostling each other's elbows, which Jack thinks isn't entirely within the rules. Jack leans in the doorway and watches for a bit, but he can't discern who Shitty and Lardo are rooting for, respectively. He thinks Lardo might be cheering for whoever utilizes the most vicious tactics, while Shitty switches back and forth to oppose her.

"Hey, Lardo," Jack says quietly, and she perks up to look at him. After standing in the background and watching them all for so long, he speaks more softly than he means to, and he would be surprised she heard him if it were anyone other than Lardo; she gives a lot of attention to her surroundings, which he thinks is an artist thing, and she's always aware of the people around her, which he thinks is a Lardo thing. He jerks his head to gesture toward the kitchen, and she follows him without a word but with an extra shove of her foot to Shitty's head as she stands.

"What's up, bro," she says as she walks past Jack and straight to the fridge.

"I'm going to ask Lopez if I can redo my midterm, but I'll feel more confident about it if I have something I'm working on already. I was wondering if you could help me." Jack reaches into his backpack and pulls out the stack of papers that makes up his original project.

Lardo turns to grin at him, nudging the fridge door closed with her hip, a tupperware container in her hand. "D'you want me to pose?" The question is innocent enough, but the arch of her eyebrow is suggestive.

Jack gives her a level look.

"Alright, alright," she mutters, coming up next to him. "What do you need me for?"

"Well, Lopez said I needed to have better subject matter. I talked to Bittle about it and he helped me realize my last project wasn't personal enough." Lardo's mouth twitches and she raises an eyebrow at him, which Jack chooses to ignore. "I was just taking pictures that I thought looked nice, I didn't really think about saying anything with them."

"You're right," Lardo laughs, leaning over the pictures Jack has laid out on the table. "These look like brochure covers. Hey, you should give them to the Samwell Promotional Society, maybe they'd pay you."

Jack lets out something between a breath and a chuckle.

"So this is your original midterm?" Lardo confirms.

Jack nods. "I was hoping there'd be something here I could still use, maybe even as the basis for a concept, but I've been staring at them way too long."

Lardo's silent for a long time, hands occasionally coming up to brush one of the pictures' edges. Jack starts to fidget under the table, his head feeling light. "I think this one could be something," she touches the picture of Faber that Bitty liked so much, "but the composition's kind of generic. Can I see your proof sheets?" she asks, eyes still on his pictures. He pulls them out of his backpack, a few more sheets of photo paper each with a grid of photographs, including the ones he didn't print. She holds them close to her face, eyes darting between the pictures. Jack waits.

"This one's nice," she finally says, pointing to a picture of Bitty standing next to the kitchen sink. It's followed by several blurry pictures of Bitty grabbing at his camera in (mostly) mock outrage, shouting about his hair as Jack laughed and snapped the shutter again and again, but that first picture he'd taken before Bitty noticed him, and his blonde head is bowed over his baking, which is just out of sight, though the very bottom edge of the photograph shows the blur of his hands as he works. Jack had framed the picture so the evening light shining through the window caught Bitty's eyelashes and the curve at the corner of his mouth, accentuating the intent look on his face, but the light is soft in the tuft of his hair, glowing just in front of the window.

Jack looks up to find Lardo smirking at him. He hopes she doesn't notice the light flush that he can feel spread up his cheeks when she catches his eye. She doesn't say anything else about the picture, and he's quietly grateful.

"You've been carrying around your camera and taking pictures of everything for weeks," she says instead, "but you didn't print any of the active shots. Think about that." She shoves at his shoulder as she walks out of the room, and Jack looks back down at the proof sheets laid out in front of him.

***

The next day, Jack ducks his head through their shared bathroom into Shitty’s room. Shitty, despite their class that started ten minutes ago, is sitting on their bed, naked and holding a joint. Jack isn’t surprised; Shitty seems to be taking this whole second semester senior thing to heart.

“Hey,” he says, and Shitty looks up. “Want to come walk around campus with me while I take pictures?”

“Why, Jack Zimmermann, you beautiful Canadian hermit, are you voluntarily taking company with you?” Shitty looks down at the joint in their hand and shrugs. “May as well smoke this outside.” He starts moving toward the door.

“Shitty, how about you put some clothes on, eh?” Jack suggests. Shitty narrows their eyes at him but complies, and five minutes later finds them complaining that they can’t feel the sun on their skin as the two of them walk down the street.

“So where we heading, bro?” they ask cheerfully, their objections to clothing forgotten.

“I was thinking I’d go over to North Quad, see if I could find some old stuff to photograph, maybe take a couple shots of Faber.” Jack shrugs. He still doesn’t have a clear idea of what he should be photographing, but he’s starting to feel like maybe that’s okay, maybe he can trust his instincts, just this once.

"You and that rink," Shitty shakes their head. "Season's over and it's still all you've got eyes for. How much of the past four years d'you think you spent in there?"

"That's exactly why I'm photographing it," Jack says instead of answering.

"Tell the truth," Shitty pokes his side, "would you live there if you could?"

"Be a bit cold."

"Perfect! Remind you of home, eh?" They mimic his accent, poorly.

Jack looks through the viewfinder of his camera. From the top of North Quad, Faber is a monolith filling the frame, just distant enough that he can capture the whole building. It isn't right; there isn't any way to frame the picture interestingly, anything other than the same uniform composition that was in his last picture of the rink. It isn't the perspective he usually sees the rink from. On a whim, he turns and snaps a few pictures of the whole campus, spreading out from the very corner where they stand. It's better, but he'd like some pictures of the rink itself; it is, after all, where he's spent a good portion of his time here at Samwell, just like Shitty said.

Shitty follows a half a step behind him as he crosses closer to the rink. "Are you going to miss it?" they ask more quietly, eyes on Jack as he stares up at the rink, considering.

"Of course," Jack says, angling his camera up toward Faber from the edge of the loading dock. It's an odd perspective, and he's a little worried it isn't entirely clear what the picture is of, but the big windows line up in a compelling way with the planes of the main stairs and this feels a bit more comfortable, a bit more like something that might mean something. He tries to remember what Lardo and his professor have told him about composition as he takes a few shots at slightly different angles and from slightly different positions, fiddling with the dials on his camera in between shots.

Shitty's silent as he takes his pictures. "S'pose you'll be moving up in the skating world, though," they say when he's finished, walking behind him up the stairs to one of the rink's many entrances. "Faber probably looks like a right shithole compared to NHL practice rinks."

"You know it's not the same," Jack replies mildly as they enter at the top of the stands.

"Do I?" Shitty lifts themself up onto the railing behind the top row of seats and sits with their back to the ice. "You've put on your stoic Canadian superstar face every time we talk about graduation."

"Like you're one to talk," Jack tosses back. "When was the last time you had a conversation with Lardo while sober?"

Shitty doesn't respond, but hops down from their perch and follows Jack toward the ice when he starts walking down the stairs. "So have you actually seen any NHL practice rinks?" they change the subject.

Jack glares at them.

Shitty chuckles. "Still haven't made a decision, I take it. Any teams been showing off their shit for you?" They pitch their voice higher and take on the odd round tone that they usually use for impressions of their rich relatives, "See here, Mr Zimmermann, we have the biggest rink in the region, and it's not true what they say - size really does matter. No, no, oh no, don't be ridiculous, Mr Zimmermann, you can't skate here! That might ruin the ice! No, no, Mr Zimmermann, we do all our skating on the roof, the drainage is just awful enough to create a positively lovely little lake, and we've only had two floods in the past five years!"

Jack snorts. "Definitely not joining that team," he bumps his shoulder into Shitty's. "I think I'll have to come back some time earlier in the morning; the light's not right."

They walk back out toward North Quad, Shitty talking about their WGSS class the previous day, picking up their rant a day later as if they hadn't paused for even a moment. Jack appreciates that they didn't talk much while in Faber, though he's not sure if it was out of understanding for Jack's unspoken needs or if they felt the same sense of awed nostalgia walking through the empty rink. He's just as glad, though, to listen to them talk about how different types of relationships are constructed in the media as he takes pictures of some of the more run-down benches in the old quad, with melting snow and spring's first hints of new life sprouting up around them.

When they get back to the Haus, Holster is sitting on the couch watching one of those shows he likes where all the characters talk too fast, Ransom studying next to him with his feet on Holster's lap. Shitty ducks their head in to say something to them, while Jack walks past into the kitchen. Lardo and Bitty are sitting at the table, heads bent together, and they both look up and fall silent when Jack walks in. He freezes.

The moment only lasts a few seconds before Shitty walks in behind him, clapping him on the shoulder, and Bitty jumps up to check on a pie in the oven, but as Lardo starts telling Shitty about the argument that occurred when she tried to order dinner ("Impossible to make any decisions around here, don't know how you call yourselves a team when you can't even sort out a meal…." "Hey, you're the manager, you should be able to - you know - manage us."), her brow stays just a bit furrowed and she keeps stealing glances at Jack. Bitty, on the other hand, keeps his back to the rest of them, his movements a bit choppier than usual. Jack is still standing uncertainly in the doorway, and he thinks he's never been more relieved than when the doorbell rings and he can slip out to get their food and pay the delivery person while there's no one there to argue with him.

By the time Bitty brings a pie to the den with an admonishment not to touch it until it's cooled and joins the rest of them in clambering over the take-out containers, the awkwardness has faded into the easy camaraderie of a team. Jack eyes him as Holster and Shitty start debating the latest Game of Thrones episode; he can't tell if the tension in Bitty's shoulders is normal, just something he hasn't noticed before, or if it's something new. The season is over, so whatever it is won't affect the team on the ice, but he still can't help but feel a niggling seed of anger at himself for not paying closer attention; he's captain, he should know what's going on with his teammates. He takes a few deep breaths and reminds himself that Bitty's an adult, and can take care of himself. If he wants to talk to Jack about something, he'll bring it up himself, and Jack trusts him to say if he needs anything, because that's what respecting someone means.

Jack tips his head back against the couch and lets his teammates' voices wash over him. They've moved on to discussing the scheduling classes for the next semester, and Jack smiles when Holster jokes that the ideal schedule includes a seven-day-weekend. It's nice, just listening to the people close to him chatter on, knowing they're all enjoying each other's company, knowing he can sit here and be a part of something whether he's actually participating or not, knowing he can just be himself and be understood, welcomed. Jack's been around hockey teams his whole life, but sometimes he thinks the Samwell hockey team is more similar to the peewee team he used to assistant coach than any of the other teams he's been around or a part of. It's in the look Holster and Ransom give each other before wordlessly passing a container of food between them, in Bitty's attentive eyes and small nods as Shitty advises him on the faults and benefits of different professors in the WGSS department with a roughly equal mix of four syllable words and creative swears, in the way they've somehow squeezed five people onto a three person couch after Lardo claimed the armchair for herself by sprawling out across it. They understand each other here as well as they do on the ice, caught in the same smooth interplay they slip into in the focused, high-stress moments at the end of a close game, and it feels safe.

Bitty nudges him as he gets up to cut into the pie. "You're awfully quiet today, captain."

Jack opens his eyes a crack and looks up at him. It's odd, seeing him from this angle. He left his camera in the kitchen earlier, but he mentally lines up the shot, the planes of the couch arm and Bitty's torso lining up to lead the eye directly to Bitty's face. "Just thinking it would be nice if we still had morning practices," he says, and is immediately pelted with an onslaught of napkins and bits of food thrown from every corner of the room. He grins.

***

Jack goes to see Professor Lopez the next day, without telling anyone where he's going because Shitty would insist that he ask Lardo to go with him and he doesn't want to bother her; he doesn't need someone to hold his hand while he talks to a professor, and if Lopez isn't going to let him redo his project he doesn't think showing up with an art escort will change her mind. He winds up running into Lardo coming out of the art building anyway, and when he tells her where he's going she nods and walks back into the building with him. He's grateful, even more so when he realizes that Lopez's office hours don't start for another forty minutes. They sit in hard wooden chairs in the lounge down the hall, Jack with his hands on his knees and Lardo with one leg slung over her chair's arm, head resting against Jack's upper arm. They sit in silence, the soft pressure and the tickle of Lardo's hair against his skin a comforting presence that keeps him from worrying too much about what Lopez will say, but still, after a while he starts to get antsy.

"Hey, how much longer do we have to wait?" Lardo asks, not long after his brain starts whirring unpleasantly.

He lifts his arm so she can see his watch, and she jumps easily, gracefully out of her seat, then clasps his wrist and drags him after her.

"Don't worry," she tosses over her shoulder as she leads him up the stairs, "we'll be back before Lopez shows. I just want to show you something."

She stops in front of the door to the junior studios and fumbles with the keypad under the handle. Jack's been in the studio a few times, when Lardo needed more than one extra pair of hands to do the heavy lifting on one of her projects, but usually when she wants help or company she brings Shitty. The room, when she gets the door open, is cleaner than he's ever seen it, probably because midterms just passed and everyone has a bit of a break before any more big assignments are due. Lardo, however, seems to be working as hard as ever, if the huge sculpture she brings him over to is any indication. She positions him in what he assumes is the front of it, then turns to look at him.

It's a bit chaotic, and he gazes up at it for a while before he can really sort out what he's looking at. It's made up of a wide array of smaller parts, silverware that's been bent into strange shapes and matchboxes with the matches attached to them at different angles, a birdhouse run through with the leg of a chair, pieces of shattered bongs hanging from torn up pieces of what Jack thinks he recognizes as several of Shitty's shirts—he wonders if Shitty gave them up wittingly—and sections of flayed books attached to all sorts of junk, including a few pages hanging from the fishing rod Shitty bought for Lardo when Jack wanted to take both of them fishing. There are a few bigger heaps of material, which have been torn apart and reshaped to the point that Jack isn't entirely sure what they are, and some larger pieces of fabric draped over open spaces. Most of the things included in the strange collection are essentially garbage, but they're fitted together in a way that makes every smallest trinket look alive and interconnected and in motion, and somehow none of it seems like trash.

"It's…nice," he finally says.

Lardo slants a grin up at him. "You can tell the truth, even if you hate it. It's not for class, so no deadline; I can scrap it and start over whenever I want."

"No," Jack says, "I like it. I think it's cool how you—" he gestures vaguely "—put everything together, in ways I wouldn't have thought of. Makes you look at things differently."

Lardo gives a small, slow nod.

"I guess—it could use some more focus?" Jack continues uncertainly. He knows what kind of critique he appreciates on his photos, and Lardo's always provided him with that. He wants to return the favor, but there's never been any doubt about who the true artist is, and he's hesitant to say anything of substance. "Every object has its own feeling, and that's great, eh, I could look at it for hours, but…I want to give my attention to each little thing and there's no bigger picture to guide me through it."

Lardo nods again, more definitively, and looks up at her sculpture for a long moment before tilting her head toward the door.

Jack doesn't say anything as he follows her back down the stairs. He waits until they're sitting in the lounge again, where Lardo immediately pulls out a notepad and starts jotting down a list of what looks like mostly shorthand, before he asks, "So if it's not for class, what's it for?"

Larissa Duan, blushing—Jack wouldn't believe it if he didn't see it with his own eyes.

***

His meeting with his professor goes well, and Jack has to admit, to himself at least, that Shitty was right. When Lopez comes through the lounge on her way to her office, she cheerfully greets Lardo and stops to chat with her, and when Jack arrives in her doorway a few minutes later she agrees to his request with the same warmth.

Jack takes advantage of the lull that comes from the coinciding end of both the hockey season and midterms to walk around campus and take a lot of photographs. He brings Shitty with him more often than not, even during their classes, and when he goes out at three in the morning one day. Jack doesn't say it outright, but he's been a little worried about Shitty lately; between how much weed they've been smoking and how little they've been going to class (or going to class sober), he thinks his worry is justified. So he invites Shitty to walk around campus with him, and he asks Lardo to join them a few times. She goes once, and it's nice in an oddly nostalgic way that reminds him of his sophomore year, the three of them sitting next to The Pond eating lunch a few days a week, and the one day Shitty wrestled him into the water. He remembers standing, sopping wet and triumphant between the cattails at the edge of the water, and Lardo booing good-naturedly on the beach a few feet away. When they got frozen yogurt after, she told him she always roots for the underdog. He thinks he made a joke about that being a reference to the hockey team, and vaguely remembers her giving him a strange look. (Mostly, Jack remembers sophomore year being a mess of panic attacks and a few near-relapses in between a rigid schedule of studying and practices, so he finds it a little strange to be nostalgic).

She says no the next time he asks both her and Shitty to go with him, and the next two times after that, so he stops asking. He notices something shifty about her eyes when she says no the third time, and he wonders, not for the first time, if she's been avoiding Shitty or the other way around. Not that either of them is doing it overtly, but they've been spending less time together, and less time alone together, and when they are together there's a kind of tension that makes the air in the room a little harder to breath. So Shitty ambles across campus with Jack as he tries to capture the campus in different kinds of light for the better part of a week. They keep up a light chatter that darts between topics and occasionally verges into nonsense—which Jack tries to follow but he sometimes loses track, for instance, of how Shitty started talking about the real world applications and dubious efficacy of putting a message in a bottle—though on one notable morning the two of them walk through South Quad in silence, not saying anything when Jack stops for twenty minutes on the bridge next to the history department and takes two rolls of film's worth of pictures from different angles and positions. Shitty doesn't even speak when Jack turns his camera on them, trying to capture the particular arc of their back where they're perched on the railing, to commit to memory the way the pale morning light hits their face and glints off their mustache in the hopes that he can replicate it if he prints these pictures.

Sometimes they talk about graduating. The past few months have consisted of a lot of Shitty bringing it up and Jack glaring at them until they change the subject, but with the end of the year growing closer he finds himself more willing to talk about it, or at least to listen to Shitty talk about it. It probably has something to do with the fact that he's not the only one anxious about the upcoming year, that Shitty is right there with him worrying about law school and leaving Samwell. It's hard to not think about the next month as a series of lasts, particularly when they're wandering around parts of campus that neither of them sees more than a few times a year. They spend one day reminiscing about their freshman year, visiting all the places they used to sit during the few months in spring semester when Shitty insisted on sitting somewhere new every time they hung out ("Only boring fuckers sit in the same spot every day! Have some imagination, Zimmermann"). A few days later, with the moon shining high above them and a joint in Shitty's hand that Jack takes a few hits of, they make a list of things they have to make sure to do before graduation. It’s a fairly even mix of favorite pastimes, things neither of them have done in a long time, and various exploits that Shitty's been saying they would do for years, the kind of stunts they say are adventures and that Jack calls a good way to get themself killed.

"I don't know," Jack says a while later, after a tangent on the development of the collegiate system in the US and its historical influence. In his mind he's responding to something Shitty said some time before, but they've been walking in silence long enough that it's more abrupt than he means, and he doesn't really remembering what he's responding to. It's something Jack appreciates about Shitty, that they recognize when he's thinking of how to phrase something or what it is he wants to say, and they let him take his time, just as willing to listen to his answer to a question ten minutes after the fact as they are right when they ask it. "I've been thinking about it for months, you know, I've made pro/con lists for every team and looked at them from every angle but - that's the problem, eh? I have all the information I could want, and there are upsides and downsides to any team, but I can't figure out how to prioritize them."

Shitty nods, eyes bright and fixed on him as they pull in a long drag from their joint. They offer it to him and he shakes his head, still a bit buzzed from the few hits he had earlier. The moon is still bright up above, and the morning light is just starting to tinge the sky a faint pinkish-orange, even though sunrise is still hours away. It's well past when Jack would usually be asleep, but the next day is Saturday and they'd only left the Haus after he'd tried to fall asleep and failed, so he tries to just enjoy the cool night air, laced with the fresh scent of early spring, and not worry about his sleep schedule. He brings his camera up to his eye and focuses tightly in on the pale blue silhouette of trees on the horizon against the morning glow. "I just…wouldn't want to base my decision on the wrong things, you know?"

Shitty tilts their head, looking unusually tentative. "Yeah, bro, I get that. Like, I spent a lot of time worrying that I wanted to go to Harvard Law just because it's close to here, and just as much wondering if pissing off my dad is enough of a reason not to go. But, fuck, man, so what? If something feels right, who's to say what the right reasons are?"

Jack turns to look at them, and snaps a quick picture when they blow a cloud of smoke toward him.

"You gotta stop doubting your instincts, bro," Shitty tells him, pointing with the joint between their knuckles. "I fuckin know you have them, you wouldn't be such a damn good hockey player if you didn't."

Jack goes to the photo lab after a few hours of sleep, getting there right when it opens. After a brief internal debate—in which he reminds himself that during his class's last critique, one kid had a picture where someone was snorting coke off to one side, and his professor said nothing—he winds up printing the photo with the smoke cloud. It's a good picture, the smoke and the backlighting obscuring Shitty's face beyond its basic structure, the glint of their eyes and the quirk of their mouth along the bottom line of their mustache barely visible, with the simmering glow of the skyline just behind them and the smoke itself in perfect focus. He spends an hour in the darkroom getting the contrast just right, and when he's done he prints two extra copies, one for himself and one that he thinks he might give to Lardo.

When he gets back to the Haus, he finds Bitty sitting on the kitchen floor, his head leaning against the oven and his face tight, drawn in on itself in a way that makes Jack's heartbeat skyrocket.

"Bits?" he says quietly, frozen in the doorway. He clears his throat. "Did…something happen?" When the problem turns out to be the oven not working, he's not sure if he should be more or less worried. Bitty stands quickly, and Jack walks toward him and tries to be comforting, though he can't seem to figure out what to do with his hands, if gripping Bitty's shoulder would be reassuring or overbearing, whether or not Bitty noticed his clumsily outstretched arm, the movement aborted a moment after he began it. Tentatively, he asks if there's something wrong aside from the oven, but Bitty only seems more upset the more he says, and it's just a few minutes before he leaves to go find Dex. Jack stands next to the broken oven, wondering what he could do to make Bitty feel better. He's never been good at comforting people, or at least he's better with gestures than with words, but he has an itch at the back of his head that tells him he needs to do something.

He leaves the empty kitchen eventually and goes back up to his room, pausing at his laptop to look over the contract the Falconers have offered him one last time and shoot a quick email to George telling her he wants to set up a meeting, then drops into bed and falls asleep almost immediately.

***

For most of the semester, Jack would go out and take pictures on his own, rather than bringing Shitty with him. He's never been fond of staying up late, and usually if he does it's not by choice and not a good experience, but there was something spectacular in the way the campus got so quiet late at night in the winter, the snow muffling every sound and glowing with the light of the streetlamps. Even when they still had morning practices, he would trudge out into the snow and the cold and the dead of night, bundled up but without gloves because he needed his hands free to use his camera. Out in the sweet winter air, with the dark pressing in around him and, often enough, gentle flurries of snow catching in his hair and his eyelashes and his camera lens, he felt calm and safe, even as his fingers started to go numb.

He never printed any of those pictures, thinking the way the light glimmered off the snow in odd bright hues of purple and orange was spookier than he wanted. But he pulls out the proof sheets again now, and looks at the composition with an eye for something other than the impersonal landscape shots that he'd somehow thought his teacher wanted. They are a little eerie, the strange sparkle of the snow giving the light a sort of nervous energy even in a picture, but it’s insulated by the dark of night and the slight blur of snow both in the air and on the lens of the camera, so the glittering snow can't come alive the way it does during the day. The effect is, on the whole, a bit unnerving, in a way that Jack mostly thinks comes from the vague warmth in a picture taken on a cold winter night.

He decides to print a picture of an alley between two of the history buildings, overgrown with ivy and some bushes that have turned to bramble and been mostly covered in snow. He remembers the night he took this particular picture; it was colder than usual, snow falling in sheets thin enough to not show up in his pictures, and by the time he had walked all the way to South Quad and back up to the Haus, he'd started to wonder if he'd gotten frostbite in his fingers. He'd stopped in Lake Quad though, even in the cold, and gazed for a long moment at the well statue, covered in snow almost entirely, and the frozen lake stretching out beyond it. He has a few pictures of that too, but they don't quite show the way the sight had left him breathless; the dark creeping in across the lake, which looks so ominous in the photographs, had seemed somehow hopeful, full of possibility as he stood there all alone with Founder's rising up behind him, a massive presence he could feel in the peripheries of his awareness. It had been a good night, and he thinks the alley picture does what his pictures of the well don't manage to, that it particularly captures the comforting stillness and the quiet, insulated feeling of _home_ he'd experienced walking around the campus at night. He thinks it might fit in well with the pictures he's taken for his current project.

He's just made a note to himself on the back of the proof sheet and laid it aside, turning to a few close copies of the same picture he'd printed because he couldn't decide which color filter looked best in the photo lab, when Ransom bursts into the kitchen and demands that Jack come help move the couch outside. Jack complies, without questioning why Holster stands to the side and does nothing, and he isn't much surprised when Shitty, Lardo, and Bitty all come outside just minutes after the heavy lifting is done. Still, he doesn't complain, remembering the last time they had moved the couch, when Shitty had gotten distracted in the middle of the hallway and Jack had dragged the couch the rest of the way outside by himself. Somehow Bitty's qualms about the couch being infested always seemed to dissipate when the boys all crowd on and around it, and Jack finds himself squashed between Bitty and Holster, with Shitty sprawled across all three of them and Lardo on the ground leaning against his legs, as Ransom carries out the TV, settles onto the arm of the couch next to Holster, and turns on the hockey game. It isn't a game any of them care much about, and it's well before the cup so there aren't any real stakes, so the high energy and tension that takes over during playoffs or a game anyone on the team is invested in (which, one way or another, generally turns out to be most games) is replaced with jovial chatter and a fair amount of mocking the players. Shitty makes the same vaguely pornographic comments that they keep up nonstop when they watch highlight reels, at which Jack rolls his eyes and Bitty slowly grows more and more red (Jack tries to ignore that; he's sure he's just imagining that he can feel Bitty's body heat where their sides are pressed together), while Ransom and Holster, leaning in close together, try to predict what plays will come next, swapping the same few bills back and forth each time one of them gets it right.

Jack, with a beer in his hand and his best friends crowded all around him, watches the game much like he watches any hockey game. He's never been one for following specific teams; he keeps track of all of them, and he doesn't really need the extra excitement and anxiety of rooting for one team. Of course, he's never been able to stay entirely removed when the Habs are playing, and he can't really help the small part of him that roots against the Penguins, a shameful bit of resentment left over from when every game they played in the cup meant a little longer that his dad would be away from home. For the most part, though, he just enjoys watching good hockey, and he keeps a running commentary in his mind on each player's strengths and faults and the information which factors into the decision for each play. It's something his dad's always done when they watched hockey together, pointing out to Jack what he can learn from and copy on the ice, what he should avoid doing, how different plays take into account the particular abilities of each member of both teams. Watching professional games is how Jack got a handle on the strategy of the sport, how it changed from an auxiliary to skating, his first love, to an elaborate web of knowledge and possibilities, constantly in flux, engaging every part of his mind and body. Being captain of Samwell's team has taught him a lot as well, and now he sometimes points out things his dad misses when they watch games together, but there's always something to be learned from watching hockey, regardless of how good the players are.

He tries not to think about how he might be playing against these teams next year, how he could have to actually apply the knowledge he's collected about different players' habits and skills. He doesn't have much success. He'd woken up from his nap the day before to find an email from George proposing that they meet that afternoon, which was convenient in that he didn't have much excess time to worry before he was sitting across a table from the Falconers' managerial team, signing several copies of different documents and releases. So, it's official. He told the boys during the Haus party that night, then disappeared to his room before Shitty could make a toast, though they climbed in his window early in the morning to discuss it. Other than that, no one's brought it up all day, which makes Jack nervous but he's also quietly grateful; he isn't ready to talk about it just yet.

(Even Shitty hadn't pressed when they'd talked to him. They didn't say anything for a while, just sitting in silence with their legs pulled up to their chest and their back against Jack's headboard, until eventually, quietly, "It's really real now, isn't it?"

"No going back," Jack agreed.

Shitty had grinned at him, just a little reticent. "Was there ever?" Of course, the moment didn't last long before they jumped up from his bed and tore the _Be Better_ poster down from his wall. Jack still doesn't know where they hid it, though he's sure they would give it back if he asked seriously.)

Jack tries to pay attention to the game, but it isn't long before he's started mentally running through all the things he has to do now that he's signed, all the different ways he should prepare for playing against teams like the ones they're watching, so he gives his seat up for Shitty and Lardo to fight over and goes inside to get his camera. Ransom and Holster have been talking about throwing a party to celebrate Jack signing, and were undeterred when he reminded them that it's a Sunday, but he has several more hours before he has to put in an appearance and in the meantime he's hoping for something to cut the panicky edge he's been feeling all day. He can't stop going over all the considerations that went into his decision, reliving the months of thought he gave it, still half-convinced that he's made the wrong call, and when he's not questioning his choice he's stuck with the knowledge that playing professional hockey is sure to be a reality for him. It's not altogether a bad thing to know, that he's made it further now than he did before, that at the very least he's redeemed himself even if he has yet to prove himself. He knows he can take the pressure now. He's spent six years getting himself to a point where he can handle it, but a part of him is terrified that it hasn't been enough, that he's only succeeded for the past four years because Samwell has been so kind to him and that facing the NHL will do to him this time exactly the same thing it did last time. A part of him is certain that he still isn't good enough, and he can't shake the feeling that he's been standing in place for four years, even though he knows that isn't true.

He considers going outside again once he has his camera, but in the back of his mind he's still constructing a list of all the things he needs to practice before he goes to training camp and how he should alter his workout over the next few months, and he thinks being around hockey right now may not be the best idea, much as it pains him to admit it. Instead, he walks upstairs to his room as he fiddles with the settings on his camera, and very carefully climbs out onto Shitty's reading room. He takes a few pictures of the river over the roof of the bar behind the Haus, with the Pond peeking between trees and buildings off in the distance. The voices from the front yard, where it sounds like Shitty is yelling at a referee's call and Bitty and Lardo seem to be tallying the number of times their least favorite player gets checked, are floating up to him, and he crosses to the other side of the roof even though he feels a bit antsy about photographing them from here. He isn't entirely sure why, since he's taken pictures of strangers and very much enjoyed the feeling of being unseen, and if anything it's less creepy when he's photographing his closest friends in his own front yard. Maybe it's just the loud volume of his mind today; maybe it's the prospect of the chirps he would get if he were seen. Still, it's not enough to make him stop, not when the sight of the five of them is making his heart jump into his throat and the yard around them (which is littered with garbage, but he keeps the focus tight on the boys and it fades into the soft brightness of the grass) creates a sea of negative space around them, making the small clump of tree, couch, and television stand out in a strange arc, as if one is moving and dragging the others along with it. He can only see the backs of everyone's heads, but there's more than enough character in the way Ransom is leaning into Holster with his weight supported on the back of the couch, half on the couch's arm and half on Holster's lap—particularly where Holster has one leg slotted in under Ransom's on the plush arm of the couch—and how Lardo is slumped against Bitty with her feet on Shitty's stomach as they lay with their legs propped up next to Holster's head and their face growing red from what Jack can only assume is the combination of their yelling and the lack of oxygen they must be getting with their head tipped back off the edge of the seat.

Jack doesn't realize he's taken so many pictures until he finds he can't progress the film further, that he's used up an entire roll in the bright light of the afternoon. He stands there a little longer, enjoying the soft breeze on his face and the sound of Bitty, below, exclaiming about power plays—in one corner of his mind, Jack considers what Bitty's saying, and makes a mental note to go over his play journal later that night. He's feeling a bit calmer, but still haunted by the same restless energy that's filled him all day, and it propels him back inside and down the stairs until he's standing next to the couch and everyone is looking up at him, Holster asking where he'd gone and Bitty looking a bit concerned.

He holds up his camera in answer to Holster's question. "I'm going to the photo lab to develop this," he says. He catches a bit of movement on Bitty's side of the couch. "Shits, you want to come with, eh?" There's a quiet huff of breath and a whisper behind the rustling of Shitty standing up, but Jack doesn’t pay much attention until Lardo stands as well.

"I'm coming too," she says; Jack notices that her brow is furrowed and though she's facing him, her eyes are cast elsewhere. He gestures in the direction of Koetter with his head, and the two of them trail a bit behind him as they walk. He can't hear what they're saying at first, but by the time they reach the river Shitty's saying something in an intense voice about a defensive play in the game they'd been watching. He slows down enough to let them catch up as they walk behind Founder's, and Shitty jostles his elbow a bit.

When they get to the photo lab, he explains to Shitty, who's never come with him to develop before, that he's going into the light-sealed prep room first, and that it's too small for them to come in with him. In truth, now that he's working with color film, the whole printing process has to be done in pitch black, but he sticks with the routine he established during his intro class last year when he was printing black and white pictures, and doesn't turn the safety light off in the main room until he absolutely has to. When he gestures toward the two doors against one wall, Shitty peeks into each room, then looks at Lardo and grins. Lardo raises an eyebrow, quirks her mouth a bit, then disappears into one of the rooms; Shitty ducks in after her. Jack shakes his head and goes into the other room. He can hear the two of them giggling and muttering as he lays out his developing equipment before turning the light off. He isn't sure if they're hotboxing the room or making out—probably both.

Jack sometimes has a hard time with the preparation stages of developing, particularly on a day like today when the slight tremor in his hands just won't go away and he keeps missing when he tries to thread his film onto a developing spool. He breathes deeply and listens to the quiet voices from the next room and focuses on the concrete facts of what he's doing. Even despite the dark, the small room feels insulated, safe, set apart from the rest of the world, with only the sound of his two best friends intruding into his consciousness.

Shitty and Lardo don't come out of the prep room until he's halfway through the developing process, turning the light-proof container over and over in his hands in a comfortable pattern. Shitty hops up onto the counter next to him and Lardo leans against the sink, both of them with flushed cheeks and red eyes. Jack says nothing, and they start chatting lightly about the myriad possibilities for dressing up the well statue in Lake Quad as an end-of-year celebration.

"It'd have to be Samwell-centric, or else what's the point, right?" Shitty says.

"Well, sure, but what does that mean?" Lardo presses. "It wouldn't be much fun to just stack it up with a bunch of dark red garbage, and there isn't really anything that would represent Samwell to everyone, is there?"

"Hmm you have a point," Shitty strokes their mustache. Jack has never been able to figure out whether it's a genuine habit or something they do to play up the stereotype. 'Ironically', he's sure Shitty would correct him. "What if you stuck all the different pride flags on it, that'd appeal to at least a quarter of us."

"Shits," Lardo says, voice tinged with amusement and exasperation.

"Hey, you're the artist here, I leave the symbolism bullcrap up to you. I'd rather come right the fuck out with what I mean; way less room for whack misunderstandings."

Lardo casts them a mock-scathing look at the phrase 'symbolism bullcrap,' but Jack doesn't miss the flash of real uncertainty that crosses her face in the dim orange light.

"What if you painted the river going around it?" Jack cuts in. "It's central to campus, you could put different things floating in it to represent different departments and organizations, and , I don't know, it seems like a good symbol for the whole college experience."

"Man's got a point," Shitty says after a pause, and they drop all into silence. "You'd have to put a unicycle on it, that trend's really taken off this year," they add after a while.

They keep discussing it while Jack finishes developing, tossing ideas back and forth on what could represent different campus groups, what things are quintessential aspects of Samwell life, and how it could develop into a multimedia project, with painting and sculpting and possibly even a video projected onto the well's side. Jack's just about to take his film outside to dry it when Lardo briefly makes a few gestures that Jack pretends he doesn't see at Shitty, who slips of the counter and announces they're going back to the Haus.

"Gotta help Ransom and Holster set up for tonight's kegster, you know," they grin at Jack.

"Don't forget it's a Sunday night," Jack calls after them. "Just because you haven't got class until midafternoon doesn't mean the rest of us don't need sleep!"

"Don't be a pisspot, Zimmermann!" Shitty's voice comes back at him, muffled by the maze-like light trap at the entrance to the dark room. "This party's for you, dweeb!"

Lardo helps him clean up the developing equipment in silence while his film dries, and examines the negatives as he cuts them into shorter strips. She leans against the counter next to him while he prints proof sheets in the pitch dark, watching as he adjusts the enlarger light.

"So how's your sculpture coming?" he asks her.

She sighs. "Have you ever tried to find a simple way to sum up something that's so huge and multifaceted that it would take you years to explain it?"

Jack looks at her faint outline in the dark and quirks his mouth at her as he turns on the enlarger light.

"Yeah. Well," she says, "there you go."

"Still can't figure out how to arrange it, eh?"

"I'm half tempted to just make it in the shape of a mustache." She shrugs, the faint outline of her shoulders lifting and one side of her tight face lit from behind by the enlarger in the moment before it clicks off. "I mean, there's a million different things that could say something, but I can't think of anything that says everything, you know?"

"Yeah," Jack says. "I think I get what you mean."

She follows him back out into the light and leans against his shoulder to look at his proof sheets. It's comfortable, though he can't help but wonder what she's thinking as she eyes his pictures.

He doesn't have to wonder long. She points to the picture he took of Bitty with the river and Founder's behind him. "Good use of foreground and background in that one," she says. "Nice tight focus." He's sure this is retaliation for bringing up her sculpture, but he supposes he doesn't mind.

"I can't have my entire project be pictures of him, Lardo," he responds.

"I'm not saying you should." She pokes his side and he flips to the next proof sheet. She makes a noise and points to one of the pictures from earlier that day, with everyone sitting on the couch. It's one of the pictures where he'd zoomed out to include the whole yard, and it's one of the more active ones; it looks like there'd just been a goal or a penalty in the hockey game, and the flurry of motion created a bit of blur but it was bright enough out that he'd had the shutter speed fairly high anyway, so the couch is still more in focus than the yard around it. "This one's got similar composition," she says. "Good to have compositional similarities in a project, you know."

Jack looks at her suspiciously; she grins up at him.

He decides to wait until the next day to print any full-size pictures, to give himself some time to look at his proof sheets and consider what he wants to print. He's feeling much steadier after the hour or two of focusing on something that he knows how to do and that he can take his time with, and they walk back to the Haus in comfortable silence.

Lardo stops suddenly when they're nearing the Haus and turns to look at him. "You should ask Bitty to come with you next time you're developing," she says. "Or next time you take pictures. Either one. Just ask him, Jack."

Jack's brow furrows and he stares at her, unsure of how to respond. After a moment she keeps walking, and he carries on with her, still considering what she said and the serious, almost heavy note to her voice. When they get back to the Haus she disappears up the stairs, and he wanders into the kitchen to find Bitty standing at the counter, making something that looks like mashed potatoes.

"That looks like a new kind of pie," Jack says as he comes up near the counter.

Bitty jumps a little and looks up at him. "Oh, I'm making dinner for y'all, I thought it would be nice to have a smaller celebration before the party, just the team; it seems more your style than a Haus party, and besides, it'll be good for the boys to get some food in their systems before they attempt to drink themselves into oblivion. Maybe some of them won't be too busy puking to make it to class tomorrow."

Jack cocks his head a bit. "Thanks, Bitty," he says softly, and Bitty looks up at him. He clears his throat. "Would you like some help?"

"Goodness, don't be silly, Jack," Bitty says in a rush, "it's a dinner for you, you shouldn't be doing any work!"

"I want to," Jack assures him. "Anyway, if I'm helping you I don't have to help Ransom and Holster with the keg." He slants a smile toward Bitty, and a few minutes later he's chopping celery and peppers to mix in with the potatoes as Bitty tells him about the book he's supposed to read for his English class.

"How come you only ever make pies, if you can cook too?" Jack asks when he lapses into silence.

Bitty shrugs. "I like baking better. It's a little less chaotic, since you only stick everything in the oven at the end, and recipes tend to be simpler, which I think makes it more fun to experiment. Plus, sweets just make people so happy."

"So, nothing to do with the team's appetites, then?"

"Yes, well, that too," Bitty says lightly. "If I made a habit of cooking dinner, y'all would never go to the dining halls again, and you'd be telling me to put more protein in every meal."

Jack chuckles. "I think you've been doing alright for yourself," he notes. "At least, you seem to be eating enough to supplement all those…extra exercises you've been doing."

He tries not to take too much pleasure in the faint flush that crawls up Bitty's cheeks.

"You mock, but some of us actually have to work to gain muscle," Bitty replies, voice level. "It's not everyone who has a blog dedicated to their bum."

"A—what?" Jack watches with fascination as Bitty's blush goes more pronounced.

"Oh, no," he says. "You can't tell me Shitty hasn't shown you that. It's not—I didn't find it, it's not something I check or anything, it was just—Shitty showed me as a joke, there's no way you don't know what I'm talking about! They never stop talking about how fit you are, I thought for sure they brought it up to tease you, you haven't—"

"Bittle," Jack interrupts. "What's a 'blog'?"

"Jack Laurent Zimmermann," Bitty says slowly, "are you chirpin' me?"

Jack cocks his head and tries to keep a straight face. Bitty swats his arm and laughs up at him, voice sweet and clear as always, but there's a tightness to his smile and something heavy in his eyes and Jack doesn't know how to fix it, doesn't know what he did to lose the open, affectionate looks Bitty gave him for the first couple months of the semester.

"Listen, Bittle," Jack starts abruptly, "I have to go to the dark room again tomorrow, I was thinking after our food class. D'you want to come with me?"

Bitty's eyes widen, and Jack thinks he seems pleased, but he looks away quickly, attention snapping back to the beef he's cutting up. "I can't, sorry," he says flatly. He doesn't elaborate on why, and Jack doesn't press.

***

Jack bails on the party that night after Shitty's third toast in his honor, which was considerably more rambling and nostalgic than the first two; he imagines it's only a matter of time before they dig out the folder of his baby pictures they've accrued on their computer over the years. He walks out into the cool night air with the slightest buzz in his fingertips and a sense-memory of the bone-crushing hug Shitty had given him just before he'd left.

"I'm so proud of you," they'd whispered in his ear. "Not just for joining the NHL, I always fuckin' knew you'd do that, but you finally learned how to follow your fucking heart." They'd sniffled, here, and it may have been for dramatic effect but it could just as easily have been genuine. "You got a damn big heart, Jacques, almost as big as your ass, though you probably shouldn't follow that." Jack thinks they would have avoided the cliché if they hadn't been quite so drunk.

He wants to appreciate the gesture of throwing him a party, but he can't help thinking that the team would take any excuse. The team dinner was nice though, Bitty had been right that it was more his sort of affair, and he'd honestly rather they not make any sort of fuss over him signing, so he doesn't really mind. He can hear the raucous sound of the Haus party fading as he walks toward the river, wind biting at his face, feeling calmer than he's felt in weeks. He thinks he made the right decision in joining the Falconers, and most of the team had told him how happy they were that he would be close—by the end of dinner he could feel his skin burning all over his body at the attention. There's a niggling sadness at the back of his head, though, quieter and more still than he's accustomed to, and it's something he'd like to sit with for a while.

He's leaning against the railing on the bridge nearest the Haus when he hears rustling and a giggle nearby and turns to see Bitty stumbling toward him. Jack lurches forward and puts out a hand to catch Bitty by the elbow, instincts curving toward softness; another feeling he isn't used to, doesn't associate with himself.

"Why'd you leave the party?" he asks.

"Was looking for you!" Bitty's voice is loud in the night air. "Ransom saw you coming out this way, wasn't surprised you'd skip out on your own party, you old fuddy-duddy." He giggles again.

"You're drunk, Bittle," Jack comments.

Bitty scowls at him. "'M not that drunk." Jack raises an eyebrow, and Bitty punches him in the arm, sways back a little at the impact. "I came all the way out here to talk to you but if you're just going to look at me all cranky I'll go back inside." Jack is sure he couldn't muster up that much dignity while drunk. Then again, he didn't ever have much dignity back in the days when he still got drunk.

He ducks his head. "You can get drunk if you want to," he says. "I didn't mean to sound judgmental."

Bitty smiles widely and tilts his head back against the railing so he's looking up at Jack. "Well, I'm glad to have your approval, captain."

Jack knows it's a chirp, but he can't help it. "You always have my approval," he says softly. The smile falls off Bitty's face and Jack mentally chastises himself. He doesn't want to take it back, but he doesn't know what else to say, so they sink into silence.

After a bit, Bitty leans his head against Jack's forearm, resting on the rail next to him. Jack's breath catches in his throat.

 _What the hell_ , he thinks, and asks: "Bittle, is there—did I do something to upset you?"

Bitty's head jerks up, and Jack only allows himself to mourn the loss of contact for a moment. "Oh Jack," Bitty sighs, and Jack wonders if he shouldn't have started this conversation while Bitty is drunk. "You hold this whole team together, you know that?"

Jack's mouth opens in surprise. He finds himself unable to respond for several seconds. "I would have said the same about you," he finally gets out.

Bitty smiles at him sweetly. "I couldn't imagine a better captain than you, or a better teammate." He probably wouldn't be saying this if he were sober. "I just…I'll miss you next year. Oh, of course, I'm glad you'll be close, but it won't be the same." He looks down, and Jack touches his shoulder gently. He doesn't know what to say. "I'm sad I won't be seeing you every day," Bitty adds in a low voice.

Jack lets the silence sit as he gathers his thoughts, running through different things he wants to say and discarding most of them. _I'll visit as often as you'll have me_ is out, and _I can think of something better_ won't do at all. _I can't imagine my life without you_ is far too honest, and he scolds himself for even thinking _Exactly how much will you miss me?_ "I'll miss you too," he finally says. "More than you know. I tell you what," he offers, "you can teach me how to—what is it, Snipe?—and we'll talk as often as you want."

"Oh-ho, you won't fool me this time, Zimmermann. I know for a fact that you Skype with Shitty every break," Bitty reminds him, but he's smiling again and there's a warmth on his face that Jack hasn't seen in a while. He almost reaches out to rustle Bitty's hair, but he stops himself.

They sit quietly, comfortably, until Bitty seems to forget the serious subject matter and starts chattering about a new band he's discovered recently, which Jack forgets the name of almost immediately. When they head back to the Haus, the party seems to be wrapping up; it's earlier than Haus parties usually end, but the boys seem to have remembered his frequent admonitions that they have class the next day, and wrangled everyone out at a semi-reasonable hour. It's still well past Jack's usual bedtime, of course, but he's grateful nonetheless.

He wakes at four o'clock the next morning anyway, and considers asking Bitty to go running with him, but he remembers Bitty saying _I can't, sorry_ , in the kitchen the previous night, and wonders again if he shouldn't have had a serious conversation while Bitty was drunk. So Jack goes running by himself, and when he gets back just before dawn he gathers his camera and heads toward Faber. He's been back to take sunrise pictures since he'd gone with Shitty, but the batch  from a few days ago didn't turn out quite right, and he wants to try again. When he's crossing North Quad, however, he sees a glint of blond hair up ahead, and watches Bitty duck into the rink with a pair of skates in his hand. He considers following for one shameful second, but quickly shakes himself and heads back to the Haus.

***

He tries again the next day. He leaves a little late, so he hurries to get the light how he wants it, but when he walks in at the top of the stands, he stops in his tracks at the sight of a blur on the ice, spinning and leaping and moving almost faster than Jack can follow.

It isn't as if he's never seen Bitty skate—between being on a team together and their private checking clinics, he's seen quite a lot of it—and he's always been impressed. It was one of the first things he'd noticed about Bitty; even when it was primarily a source of anxiety and jealousy, there's always been something enthralling about the way Bitty moves on the ice, like one of those water striders that perfectly, instinctively masters gravity and surface tension and the laws of physics, like he belongs there. He's even seen a few figure skating moves during practices, quick and isolated and done in hockey skates. But Jack's never seen him skating quite like this. He's never seen him so graceful, making precise, confident movements and working not just the ice but his own body and the air around him like there's no clear boundary between himself and his surroundings. He's never seen Bitty look so at peace.

Before he knows what he's doing, Jack has his camera up to his eye, zoomed in and following Bitty and taking picture after picture. It's easy to keep the viewfinder glued to him, and he shifts the shutter speed and aperture settings almost automatically, thoughtlessly. He loses track of time until Bitty stops to catch his breath, his eyes half-closed, leaning against the board like he can't support his own weight but looking alive. He's about to take another picture, enraptured by the way Bitty's face is glowing, his expression open and passionate and painfully honest—Jack lowers his camera. Bitty's expression when he'd caught Jack photographing him in the kitchen flashes behind his eyes and he backs out of the rink slowly, feeling suddenly like an intruder.

He leans against the wall outside and tries to gather himself. The sun is up now, its light harsh and unavoidable. He takes a deep breath and starts walking back to the Haus; when he tries to take a few picture of the river on his way, he finds he can only advance the film twice, and he feels another flash of guilt that he somehow used up an entire roll of film in the rink.

***

He avoids Bitty for the rest of the day. He shouldn't be surprised at how hard it is, considering they live across the hall from one another, but they've been seeing less and less of each other the past couple weeks and even when they're together things have been oddly strained between them—a part of him, he supposes, feels like it shouldn't be that different. It is, though, and when Ransom knocks on his bedroom door to ask if he wants to go to the dining hall with him, Holster, and Bitty, Jack feels a pang as he says no. He doesn't think he should miss Bitty after only a day of not seeing him, and he's frustrated with himself for missing him anyway.

He goes to bed even earlier than usual, then lies awake for hours debating whether or not to skip the food class he has with most of the team the next day. His mind provides him with plenty of potential scenarios that seem like reason enough not to go, but he's only skipped class four times in his entire Samwell career and he's not really sure he can justify it to himself. When he wakes with a jolt at five o'clock the next morning, though, he doesn't think he'll even be leaving his room all day. He can't stop shaking, so he curls up under his covers and tries to stop thinking. It doesn't work, his brain running a loop of all the things he shouldn't have done or said in the past year. There are older memories mixed in as well, like the time his dad invited Mark Recchi over when he was twelve and Jack told him he thought Peter Forsberg was a better player, and the goal he scored on his own team back in high school, and the first party he went to in the QMJHL where Parse asked him if he "did e" and Jack stared back at him, mouth open and time stretching on, until finally, stupidly, saying, "Is that a kind of exercise?" They're old memories that he's turned over in his head hundreds of times and that he doesn't think he'll ever forget, because they'll never lose the sting of knowing he could have done something differently, that he could have been better.

So he gets up long enough to get his laptop, then settles back into bed. He's made it through two war documentaries and three episodes of Band of Brothers when there's a knock on the bathroom door and Shitty bursts through a moment later looking concerned.

"Brah," they say, "I thought you were dead."

Jack just looks up at them. "Don't bust in here like that," he says.

Shitty's face shifts, almost imperceptibly, and they sit down on his bed. "Want to walk up to north campus and take some pictures? It's nice as fuck-all outside."

Jack thinks about it. It would be nice to get away from the Haus, maybe get out of his own head a bit, but the idea of taking pictures for class makes something inside him curl up and groan uncomfortably. He nods anyway. Shitty claps him on the knee and leaves so he can get dressed, which he does quickly then digs through his desk drawer to pull out his old digital camera. He hasn't touched it in years. Its weight in his hands grounds him as he walks outside with Shitty, but he still looks around nervously when he walks past the kitchen.

"He's at the library with R 'n' H," Shitty informs him, and Jack gives them a look that he hopes says _I didn't ask_.

Shitty doesn't pry, they never really do (unless giving him persistent knowing looks until he gives in and talks to them counts as prying), but they know his class is film-only and they keep casting curious glances at his digital camera as they walk into the copse of trees that takes up a good portion of north campus. Jack takes a few pictures in silence before he answers their unspoken question.

"This was my second camera," he says. "My dad got it for me a few months before I was supposed to be drafted. I didn't use it much that summer, I was too caught up in -- other things, but I started taking a lot of photos in rehab."

Shitty gives him a startled look and almost trips over a tree root. They're the only person who's heard much of anything about his time in rehab, but even to them he doesn’t bring it up often.

"My therapist encouraged me, but it was something I started doing on my own; I'd never really had the time before, and it was nice to have something that was mine, that I hadn't lost. It helped, too," he explains. "Take a step back, look at the world through a lens. It was a different way to process things. I hadn't ever really taken the time to let things slow down until I could understand them, not with anything other than hockey." He stops and takes a picture of Shitty's serious face, half hidden by leaves, and another of the canopy above them. "I didn't have much time for it once I started here, either."

Shitty leans against a tree and looks at him thoughtfully. "Why'd you skip class today, Jack?"

Jack sighs. "I fucked up, Shitty," he answers honestly. "I did something stupid."

Shitty's brow furrows. "Do you want to talk about it?" they ask.

Jack shrugs. He's not sure how to explain it, that he's not just feeling guilty about taking pictures when Bitty couldn't see him. No, he's far more ashamed of the vague longing, at the back of his mind, to see Bitty that open again. It's not that Bitty is normally repressed or even especially private about his thoughts and feelings, but while he was figure skating Jack saw an easy honesty that he's never seen in Bitty before, and he wants to print out the pictures he feels so guilty for taking and stare at them for the rest of his life. Better yet, he wants to see him like that with his permission; he would give anything to be willingly gifted with that side of Bitty.

He's tried so hard to be a better person than he used to be, but he can't even feel uncomplicated guilt when he's done something wrong.

"Look," Shitty says when Jack doesn't speak up. "I think you should at least talk to Bitty about it. Don't—" they cut him off as he opens his mouth to object. "I know it has to do with him, you wouldn't even fucking look at him at practice yesterday. Just…shit, it's the last few weeks of school, Jack. Don't drag this out."

Jack sighs and gives them a small smile. "Yeah," he says, "you're right."

"Aren't I always?" Shitty responds, grabbing onto a low-hanging tree branch and swinging from it until it gives an ominous crack.

Jack raises his eyebrows at them.

***

He tries to work up the courage to talk to Bitty that afternoon; he knows Bitty has a two hour break between classes where he usually bakes something in the Haus kitchen. Instead he goes to the dark room. A part of him is embarrassed that he knows Bitty's schedule by heart, but he reminds himself that he's got a pretty good handle on Shitty and Lardo's class schedules as well. When he gets back to the Haus, there's another hour before Bitty comes back from his seminar, so Jack lays his pictures out on the kitchen table, hoping he can make something complete with what he has since just looking at his camera makes his skin crawl right now.

He's not sure how long he sits there, eyes sweeping over his pictures, before he feels a pressure on his shoulder and looks up into Lardo's face. He dredges up a smile for her and leans back a bit to give her a better view.

She's quiet for a while, before: "So?"

Jack looks at her blankly.

"What is it you're trying to say?" she prompts.

He looks back down at his pictures and finds he doesn't have an answer for her. "I was sort of hoping if I took enough pictures of things I like, it would all just kind of…come together."

Lardo shakes her head. "Isn't that just like you," she mutters, fond but exasperated. Jack doesn't understand what she means; he's always had a clear idea of what he's doing, strong ambitions and exact goals and solid plans for upcoming years of his life. He'd thought of this project as trying something new, slowing down and letting his creative side out - a different approach that's all him, now that he's not just photographing what he thinks his professor wants to see.

He stares at the pictures, feeling lost. Lardo pats him on the shoulder. "Right there with ya, bro."

***

He leaves for the library ten minutes before Bitty's class is supposed to get out and stays there the rest of the evening, all the while chiding himself for hiding like a coward. He's too distracted to get any work done, and he's jittery the whole walk back to the Haus, but he lets those jitters carry him to the threshold of Bitty's room and doesn't let himself think about it before he knocks. The result is a few moments of near panic before Bitty opens the door and looks up at him with wide eyes.

"Can I come in?" Jack asks.

Bitty stands back to let him through without a word. Jack stops in the middle of the room and tries to think of what to say. "Um," he starts, and almost flinches at the harshness of his own voice. _Just tell him and get it over with_ , he urges himself. "Can I show you some pictures?" he says.

Bitty looks, if possible, even more surprised, but he responds with his usual dignity and composure. "Yes, alright, I'd love to see them."

Jack carefully pulls out the pictures he'd printed a few days earlier, leaving his proof sheets - including the incriminating Faber pictures - in his bag. He holds them out, but he doesn't actually have that many pictures that Bitty hasn't already seen, and they're being pressed back into his hands all too soon.

He takes a deep breath. "Bittle, I need to talk to you about something."

Bitty's brow settles. "Of course, Jack, anything."

"I accidentally - well, no, that's not right…I went to take pictures at the rink, and you were—I didn't mean to—" he huffs a breath, frustrated with himself. "I saw you figure skating," he finally forces out. Bitty flinches backward, seemingly unconsciously, and a blush rises on his cheeks quickly. Jack finds it easier to keep going now that he's started. "It wasn't something I meant to do, but I got so caught up in watching you that…I'm sorry, I started taking pictures without even thinking about it, but I won't develop them and I'll throw out the negatives if you want me to, the other pictures on the roll weren't any good anyway." Bitty's still staring at him, mouth open. "I'm so sorry, it was a horrible invasion of privacy, I should have left as soon as I saw you, whatever I can do to make it up to you—"

Bitty silences him with a hand on his arm. "No, that's—it's alright. You don't have to throw them away."

"Are you sure?" Jack asks.

Bitty nods. "In fact—it's been years since I've seen myself figure skating, if you have any of them with you, d'you think I could see them?"

Jacks nods as soon as his brain catches up with the words, and almost bends the proof sheet in his haste to pull it out of his bag. He holds it out.

Bitty gasps. He gapes at the pictures for what must be minutes, and Jack can feel his heart pounding in his chest, his head, his fingers, every inch of him on fire as he watches Bitty's eyes dart over the paper and his mouth cycle through innumerable mesmerizing shapes. "These are…They're amazing, Jack," he chokes out after what feels like an eternity. "They're really…beautiful, I don't know how you did it but…you really captured the feeling, with the motion and the light, it's like you—like you were right there with me on the ice." When he finally looks up, his eyes are sparkling and the rapidfire beating of Jack's heart seems to suddenly stop. "I'm honored that you made me look so graceful," Bitty says, voice all sincerity.

Jack blinks. "It wasn't my pictures, Bitty," he says, hopelessly honest. "You don't need the help."

A flash of surprise and uncertainty crosses Bitty's face, and Jack feels his face growing warm.

"You should get to bed." His voice comes out gruff. "It's getting late."

***

Jack is heading home from a meeting with his advisor the next day when he crosses paths with Lardo, who grabs him by the hand and hauls him toward Koetter.

"What's the big idea, eh?" Jack asks, laughing.

"I have something to show you," Lardo answers. Her voice is practically vibrating.

"Alright, alright, just slow down," Jack insists. "You've gotta be a foot shorter than me, how can you move so fast?"

Lardo turns and fixes him with a withering glare, somehow without slowing at all. Jack stifles his chuckle; he doesn't think it would be appreciated, and he needs to save his breath to keep up with her. Fortunately the art building is close, though Lardo doesn't slow for the two flights of stairs to the junior art studios. There's more clutter than the last time he was in the studio, but his eyes fall on Lardo's sculpture as soon as she opens the door anyway.

"Oh," he says.

Lardo is bouncing on her toes. "Well?" she asks him.

"It's…wow," Jack tells her. The sculpture has all the same elements as when she showed it to him before, but it's been almost completely rearranged. Where there had been a vague circle of random pieces, now it has a flow to it. On one side, most of the hanging objects and large static blocks are gathered, arranged together sporadically but in a way that's visually pleasing. They lead into a sort of twisting line of those objects that have more directional movement, most of the silverware and fabric and different pieces of brick and wood that have been carved and shaped to fit with the arcs of the line, which gets bigger until it reaches a mangled piece of metal. There, it looks like an explosion; all the material with outward movement, books with the pages spread and jagged bits of glass and some more of the silverware and fabric, a crescendo of collected objects that seems to grow even as he looks at it. If he looks closely he can see translucent lines connecting some of the suspended objects, but many are attached to each other in creative ways, different pieces holding each other up such that it looks only incidental to the basic structure.

"Jack," Lardo says, but her voice is gentler than it was before. He realizes he's been staring at the sculpture without saying anything.

"This is amazing, Lardo," he says. "I mean—talk about focus, the movement here is incredible, it's like you're telling a story with the way it's constructed. I don't…I may not understand every piece but the motion of it and the feeling of it is—I don't need to get all the details, you know?" Lardo's smiling at him now, her face glowing. He's never seen her look this proud of any one art piece. "It's beautiful. I can't imagine how much work it must've taken to get everything to fit together, and to look so open and active without it all falling apart."

She leans her head on his upper arm, and they both look at her work in silence, taking it all in. "I'm going to show Shitty tomorrow," she tells him quietly.

Jack looks down at the top of her head. "They're going to love it, Lardo. I mean that."

***

With Bitty's permission, Jack prints one of the figure skating pictures from the middle of the roll. It's one of the photos with Bitty in the middle of a jump, caught in a beam of the early morning light streaming into the rink, taken quickly enough that the detail is clear and he looks frozen even though his hands, his hair, and his clothes show ample motion. Jack sits back down with all the pictures he's developed, and at first he thinks it just looks like a collection of images showing Samwell—which doesn't mean much, given that it's where he lives and therefore his main source of subject matter.

He puts that thought aside, though, and starts sorting through the compositional similarities, pulling out pictures when he starts to see a trend of tight focus and soft lighting and a clear division of foreground and background. There are still quite a few pictures of campus, one taken from next to Faber  with the glint of the sun on the huge windows and one of his night pictures in the snow, the picture of Bitty in front of Founders and the river and one of the well statue with The Pond behind it, taken with a long exposure so the people milling about the quad are only visible as translucent blurs in the middle ground, but with the other pictures he has gathered together he starts to see something more than that. Between the campus pictures and the pictures of the team—Shitty blowing smoke into the lens, Bitty by the kitchen sink, Ransom and Holster wrestling on the disgusting green couch in the den, the whole team's smiling faces turned toward him at the dinner after he signed, Shitty sitting on the roof seen through Jack's bedroom window, the frogs posing together, the picture of the boys walking hockey on the lawn, a close shot of Lardo focusing intently on a painting with one brush in her hand and two between her teeth, and at the center of the pictures he has laid out, the latest addition of Bitty mid-twirl—they all come together to say something like _home_.

Jack thinks he's starting to understand what Lardo meant when she said that waiting for things to work out is just like him.

***

Jack goes out to take pictures one last time the next day; now that he has a clear idea of what his project is saying, he wants to do a sweep of the campus to see if anything stands out as relevant or worth including. It's a difficult exercise, trying to see things through that one specific framework, and he finds he's spending more time lost in thought than he is taking pictures.

Bitty comes across him standing on the Samwell Bridge, holding his camera down by his stomach and looking out over the river. He walks up and leans against the wall next to Jack and doesn't say anything.

"I'm glad I took this photography class," Jack says when he feels the silence has stretched on long enough. "I never took the time to really appreciate the campus before."

"It is a lovely campus," Bitty agrees.

"I'm going to miss it," Jack tells him. "I'm trying not to regret the time I wasted not paying attention; I'm here now, and I have a couple weeks left to enjoy."

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bitty turn toward him.

"I'll visit, sure, as often as I can, but it won't be the same, eh?" he continues. "And anyway, I don't want to annoy y'all by coming around all the time."

"Don't be silly, we'll always want you here. And I think," Bitty's voice goes soft, careful, "change is always going to happen. But…it doesn't have to mean loss?"

Jack smiles. Considers. "I only came here because I thought it was my best option for getting to the NHL," he says. "This school has meant more to me than I ever would have imagined. It's really…shaped who I am. That's not something I'm going to leave behind."

He can see Bitty nod, close enough that his hair tickles Jack's arm. "I get that. Coming here was as much about escape as anything, for me," Bitty says. "But y'all are like my family, now."

Jack leans toward him, just enough to press his arm into Bitty's shoulder. "This is my home," he says sincerely. "Not that I don't love my parents, but it was never so easy to just…be, when I was living with them. Here, there's something—I have something I never had before. I hope I can take that with me, too, when I leave."

"Jack -" Bitty says, then stops.

Jack finally turns to look at him, takes in his flushed face, his lips parted just a crack and his eyebrows drawn together. "Eric, I'm going to kiss you now," he says.

Bitty's eyes widen but stay fixed on Jack's face. He just nods, slowly.

Jack leans forward like giving into gravity; in the gentle press of their lips, he feels grounded, safe.

***

When they walk into the Haus holding hands, it takes all of five seconds for Ransom and Holster to start whooping loudly while Lardo and Shitty high five. Jack ducks his head to hide his grin, and barely catches Lardo holding out her hand to Ransom and Holster.

"Pay up, boys," she says.

"I thought graduation was a sure deal," Ransom grumbles as he pulls out his wallet.

"We'll have to get the frogs to pay up too," Shitty gloats. "The little shits put their money on you getting together over the summer."

Jack stares around at them, open-mouthed. "You can't be serious."

Lardo cackles. "We're not," she admits, leaning back against Shitty's chest. Jack takes note of the way they're both tentatively glowing, and he has to work to glare at her when he just wants to beam at them. "Thought it'd be fun to mess with you. Nice and quick on the uptake there, Rans."

"Thanks," Ransom smirks at her. "Can I get my money back?"

"Nuh-uh," Lardo says. "You're the one who decided to fork over a ten."

Jack can hear their bickering continue as Bitty, eyes bright and a chuckle on his lips, drags him toward the stairs. He’s going to miss this place, with its comforting bustle and easy camaraderie and vibrant life, but that thought doesn’t scare him so much anymore. He’s starting to realize that home is something you keep with you, that plants itself inside you and wraps its roots around your bones and doesn’t let go. Something that lives and grows within you, even when you don’t realize it’s there.


End file.
